


Electric Twist

by cleanlittlesecret



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 10:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16345370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleanlittlesecret/pseuds/cleanlittlesecret
Summary: The most important person in Ai's life is beyond his reach.





	Electric Twist

The typing had stopped. He opened his eye inside the Duel Disk and blinked as the world came into focus. A brown puddle of old water damage stained the ceiling, and blueish light glazed one side of his screen. Ai rotated to examine the computer monitor glowing near him on the desk.

After returning to the new VRAINS, Yuusaku had taken to scouring the internet for footage of Playmaker without mentioning it to Kusanagi. He was probably trying to lighten the load now that Kusanagi was worried about his brother’s stolen data on top of everything else, but that night his concern had left Yuusaku sitting at his desk with his face propped on one hand and his eyes closed, past the limits of human exhaustion.

“Oi, Yuusaku. Are you really sleeping like that?” His vision reframed to fit two smaller eyes as he emerged from the screen to stretch across the desk. “Hey, can’t you hear me? Wake up.” When his hand glitched through Yuusaku’s cheek, Ai drew back and looked at his palm. “Ah, right. This is your world, so…” A quick internal command raised the Duel Disk’s volume. “Open your eyes, sleeping beauty! You have a perfectly good bed right beside you!”

“Shut up,” Yuusaku mumbled.

Ai huffed. “Fine then. See if I care how crappy you feel in the morning.” He crossed his arms and turned away, but with no one to see it, the drama was lost, and he couldn’t bring himself to retreat into the screen. This close, he should have felt the breath from Yuusaku’s slightly open mouth, but he had no way to shake him. Cyberse World had been created on a scale that suited the Ignises, but everything in the outside world was much bigger and far beyond his reach. Should he fly the Duel Disk into Yuusaku to knock him awake? “Geez. Where’s that dumb bot when I need her?”

He settled for calling again and again, raising the volume with each repetition until Yuusaku opened his eyes and squinted. “What do you want?”

“Oh, _finally._ ” Ai leaned back with his hands on his hips. “If you’re gonna sleep, shouldn’t it be in your bed?”

“What…?” Yuusaku rubbed his eyes and peered at the monitor. “I must have dozed off.”

Ai dropped his head with a sigh. “Yes. We’ve established that. Please go to bed.” With a vague murmur, Yuusaku shut down the computer, lurched from his chair, and stumbled the few steps to collapse onto his mattress. Ai rested his elbows on the curve of his screen. “Good night, Yuusaku-chan.”

Left in silence and darkness, Ai touched the curve of his own face where no mouth was needed. The draw Yuusaku had on him felt _real_ in a way he barely comprehended—deeper than the other humans he’d met and stronger than the other Ignises. Yuusaku was his partner, the one person who had genuine faith in him, who’d taken the brunt of his lies and still gave him trust, and Ai couldn’t touch him. Most of the time, it was easy to ignore this void, but when Ai wanted to do something like ruffle Yuusaku’s bangs to annoy him or pat his hand to comfort him, the nothingness became a hunger he couldn’t feed.

Link VRAINS closed this gap, so the next time they logged online, Ai shot from the Duel Disk as soon as Playmaker landed on his D-board. “Playmaker-sama!” But Playmaker flinched, and when Ai faceplanted somewhere other than the cheek he’d aimed for, they both recoiled.

“Ai! What are you doing?”

“Ah, um, I…” He offered a weak shrug to that wide-eyed stare. “Whoopsie-daisy?” Ai fled into his screen. “Never mind! Carry on!” With all the shocks buzzing his code, he half-expected the ancient Duel Disk to overheat and burn Playmaker’s wrist. When he screwed together enough nerve to peek through the screen, he found Playmaker guiding his D-board through the sky with the faintest warmth on his cheeks, a coloring that wasn’t part of the avatar’s design, and Ai fought the urge to reach for him again.

Playmaker’s lips were surprisingly soft.


End file.
